Friday, February 23, 2007

Nutrimetics, coffee, tongues and opera

Today I am a lady who does coffee (if not lunch) - hurrah! Spent the morning at Jane H's, catching up on the gossip, talking about "A Dangerous Man" (http://www.flamebooks.com) - she's read it, she really enjoyed it, phew that's a relief, thanks, Jane ..., and sampling the products of Jane's wonderful shit-hot new stylish coffee machine. It was marvellous! And even did decaff, so I'm not quite as on the ceiling as I would be with a caffeine fix. Though as I'm fairly hyper anyway, I sometimes wonder if it makes any difference ... Oh, and I also restocked my essential supplies of Jane's Nutrimetics (http://www.nutrimetics.co.uk) so perhaps I am indeed turning into a designer product junkie. Anyway, I love the stuff, and I even have two new ones to try, so I am a contented cat. Goodness, am I turning in to a Real Woman? No! Surely not ... Whatever would Michael say?

Talking of womanhood though, I actually bought £400 worth of new clothes yesterday!!! Which in Orvis (http://www.orvis.co.uk) language, translates into ... um ... only six items, including two utterly adorable jackets which I just couldn't resist. Bloody hell, what am I saying? Ye gods, I never shop. Or buy clothes. What is happening to me??? I blame it on the Sad Light, which is turning my winter depression into an overwhelming desire to spend. Or perhaps the Government is putting female hormones into the water supply after all, and I am at last getting my fair share of the little buggers? Anyway, Lord H was thrilled as he is constantly bemoaning how cheap a wife I am (or at least I think that's what he's saying ...) and used his credit card to buy the stuff. So I am indeed turning into Surrey Wife in that I am now officially Kept By My Husband. You heard it here first.

And a curious fact about Lord H (steady people, steady ...): I have known this man for 20 years and been married to him for 13-and-a-half, and yet yesterday evening he walked into the dining room, stuck his tongue out and demonstrated for the first time ever how he could roll it into a U-shape. It was horrible, really horrible. I can see I shall have to book another therapy session pretty damn quick ... In fact, I have never seen anything quite so disturbing before (which I imagine proves what a bizarrely sheltered life I have in fact led) and it also proves beyond shadow of a doubt that I am actually married to an alien. Take me to your strange tongue-rolling people ... No, on second thoughts, don't. Anyway, once I'd stopped screaming and calmed down somewhat, Lord H explained that it's part of the genetics presentation he's preparing for his theology course. Apparently, there are two types of people in the world: those who can roll their tongues into a seriously weird U-shape (dominant gene); and those who can't (recessive gene). All I can say is that, for the first time ever, I am really, really glad I'm not the dominant one. And I can see his presentation is going to be memorable.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I have spent the afternoon typing up yesterday's scribblings of "The Gifting" onto the computer - it's slowly, slowly this week, with only 97,600 words in total to show. Oh to get to 98,000 before the Revolution arrives. And Sean from Flame has very kindly contacted me to see if I'm happy with the look of ADM - the answer being a resounding yes! - but lovely of him to ask. I've also had another go at a piece of flash fiction for the Writewords (http://www.writewords.org.uk) Flash Fiction II challenge (the theme being "plughole"!) and have come up with a 50-worder:

Bathtime secrets
Janine watched the water as it swirled down the plughole. When it was finished, she lifted out the matted hairs from its tiny eyes. Dark strands mixed with auburn. Such a shame then that she was blonde. Downstairs, she heard the front door open. ‘Darling, I’m home,’ her husband yelled.

Tonight, Lord H and I are off to see Opera South's performance of Donizetti's "The Elixir of Love" in Haslemere - Ruth from work sings in the chorus, so there's a personal connection, but it's a great opera too. The only problem I'm having (apart from Haslemere's parking hell) is that I hate, hate, hate going out on a Friday (when Lord H and I should be slumping in front of the telly with pizza and icecream - that's what Friday's are for, for goodness sake), and we're not really going to catch up on our usual psychotic-hermit time until Sunday, as we're doing golf & lunch at ours tomorrow. All nice stuff of course, but the amount of social interaction I'm going to have to do with the outside world is already making me twitchy. I think it's time for a calming pill ...

Today's nice things:

1. Jane liking ADM - thanks, Jane!
2. Jane's great coffee machine
3. Opera.

Anne Brooke
http://www.annebrooke.com
http://www.goldenford.co.uk

4 comments:

Cathy said...

Oh my God, Anne, how lucky are you?! A husband who WANTS to sprend money on you rather than one who spends ages scrutinizing the joint credit card bill after the event....(and before you suggest it, yes I do have another card for sneaky spending which he doesn't see!!!)

Anne Brooke said...

Ooh, sneaky you!! Love it! My excuse is that I spend so little otherwise!!

:))

A
xxx

Anonymous said...

Is it sad to say that all my family have tried rolling their tongues. I can't nor can one of my children, but the rest can!

As long as it never becomes a type of greeting I'll be okay.

Good on you for spending on yourself, you deserve it. Now go and flounce around in your new jacket saying to anyone you meet, "I'm an author you know".

Anne, please can I copy your 50 word bathroom piece onto my blog, it really fits into my latest entry? I will of course link to here for you.

Have a good weekend.

Sue xx

Anne Brooke said...

Hurrah! Another 2 members for our non tongue-rollers group! Welcome.

And, um, I do have to say that getting all your family together and making them try it is ... rather sad. Have you tried going out, meeting people at all??!!

:))

Yes, of course you can use anything you want from the blog - I'm happy to be asked!

Have a great w/e

A
xxx